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Thursday, August 14, 2014

Creating a Wedding Hashtag

Yes, the entirety of this post will be about hashtags. No, I do not blame you if you leave now, because hashtags kind of get a bad rep. (I highly recommend you click that link, if you love Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, and laughing.) However, you should know that wedding hashtags aren't a stupid trend. They are useful, and here's why: they help document the wedding from the guests' perspective.

Our photographers are going to be AMAZING (seriously, they're fab, and I cannot wait to share more info on them soon!), but I'll be honest... I can be a bit impatient, and to get the gorgeous pictures we want, we'll have to wait a while for the end result. Having our guests take pictures on their phones and then using our special hashtag will create an archive of wedding pictures for me to pore over before we get our professional photos back. Although I know some people don't use the hashtag-searching-feature (or whatever the technical term is) on social media, I love it! I love knowing John and I, along with our family and friends, will be able to search for all posts with our hashtag and see everything documenting our wedding.

So, now that I've convinced you that hashtags are indeed useful, it's time to talk about the actual hashtag itself. It has to be at least semi-original, because if we were to use the popular hashtag #whittenwedding, we would see the 314 pics with that tag on Instagram already.

My first thought? Something simple without a lot of room for spelling errors. #whittenwedding, #thewhittenwedding, and #whittenwedding2015 were already taken, and no one else seemed to be okay with just doing #weddingwhitten (it's just #whittenwedding backwards!) so I was kind of out of luck.

Second thought? Something witty. My best friend (and MOH!), Kara, liked #gettinwhittenwithit but that breaks all kinds of rules in my book. 1. Room for spelling errors ("Is it gettin' or getting?"). 2. John's last name, Whitten, does not even kind of rhyme with jiggy- the actual word in the Will Smith song, so I don't really think that counts as clever. I told her we could use that for the bachelorette if she really wants! ;)

So, I felt pressure to come up with something funny or cool, but that just wasn't in the cards. I mean, when it comes down to it, it's just a hashtag. Want to know what John and I decided on?

From now on, this chica will be using #smittenwhittens to document any and all wedding planning leading up to next June 27th! Is it the most creative hashtag ever? Probably not, but John and I both like it- we'd like to think it describes us pretty well! (Well, technically, it just describes him well- I'm not a Whitten yet!)

We hope our guests like the idea of using hashtags on social media as much as we do, but we also hope they understand our wishes for an "unplugged" ceremony. More on that later!

8 comments:

We got 100% lucky that our name is completely uncommon and no one else had #hinnerswedding already. Of course, with our nickname being "the hineys" we thought it would be cute to document our honeymoon using #hineymoon. I never even thought that the I is right next to the O on the keyboard and "hineymoon" was full of pictures from people who had simply misspelled "honeymoon". I was not thrilled. hahaha. We made the mistake of not publishing it anywhere, so only our bridal party knew to use it. Oops! Definitely advertise that you have a hashtag!!

I love your hashtag! The wedding I went to this weekend we created the hashtag last minute of #baughsonaboat since they left the ceremony to the reception via a boat. I think hashtags are a great way to look at all of your guest's memories and having an unplugged wedding is great. I am attending one at the end of the month with no photos during the ceremony. The ceremony is the most essential part and you should be in the moment not looking through your camera hoping for an image.

I think hashtags are a MUST for weddings now! We have so much social media why not use it to our advantage?!?! And I am IN LOVE with your clever hashtag. Oh and have I mentioned how excited I am youre getting married? Cause I am! (Missed actually talkign to you while I didnt post all month! haha)